A good cover is never really a cover, but a unique insight into the lives of the artists who record them. What they make of a covered song reflects the emotion they heard in the original, and says more about the artist than the original author. In Jukebox, Cat Power—Chan Marshall—saunters through a collection of moving if sometimes obscure covers. And fortunately, they are all good covers.

Backed by the Dirty Delta Blues Band, her sound ranges from folk to gospel and everywhere in between. In her opening track, she takes any hint of Sinatra out of “New York, New York” and replaces it with her own sexy, understated soul. The whole album has an unassuming air about it, as if Marshall recorded this more for her own amusement than her audience’s. Her warbling voice treats each song as if it were written for her, so much so that her two original pieces meld into the catalog as if they were one of these classics.

However, this is not the feel-good album of the year. Marshall connects more with the hurt and heartbreak in each of her selections. Her version of the Highwaymen’s “Silver Stallion” drifts by softly on a single acoustic guitar, but the defiant ache in her voice will linger for days. Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” is a fitting final selection. When she sings, “Blue / Songs are like tattoos,” it’s clear that every song on this album is a tattoo. Though they may have been created by someone else, she wears these songs like badges of her emotions: her pain, her defiance, her love. She has chosen these songs to tell a story about herself, and though it’s sometimes painful, it’s also captivating.